Not Accepted: No meat of any kind. No dairy — including cheese, butter, yogurt. No cat or dog food. No pizza. No oil or fat. No animal or human manure. No dead animals. No plastic. No clothing. No toilet paper, diapers, band-aids, or dental floss. No cigarettes or tobacco. No wax paper or tin foil. […]

Weedeater column originally published in ARTHUR Spring 2013 Honey, wax and wisdom is true currency. You can eat, heat, fuel and chew on it and hopefully, this: Two years back, I worked for a fifth generation bee keeper who keeps bees over the 500,000 acres of wildlands that border Arizona and Mexico. Her 600 hives […]

I am obsessed with urban soil health, so when I got a phone call in mid May from Steven of the Seeds of Peace Collective, I realized a soil ship came in. Seeds of Peace (seedsofpeacecollective.org) is a collective of accomplished cooks and trained street medics who provide delicious homecooked food and logistics as supportive […]

copyright 2012 Nance Klehm SE Portland dry toilet I don’t use a flushie often, I made the decision to ‘go dry’ years ago, adopting the bucket toilet + sawdust system as it pairs nicely with my composting obsession and food growing habit. I am staying at Erik and Kelly’s, whose low flush toilet and antique […]

Copyright 2011 Nance Klehm illustration by Edie Fake All organic waste is compostable. If it wasn’t, we’d be living amongst pile-ups. Compost is just a matter of how much time and energy it takes given the methods employed or the conditions the material is exposed to. This is the truth: everything comes into this world […]

Between Solstice and the last new moon of 2011, I emptied 225 gallons of human waste onto the humanure compost pile capping this year’s humble pile vintage 2011. The pile enters the winter measuring 15’ x 5’ x 3; or just short of 4.5 cubic yards which is roughly 5-6 small pick up truck’s worth. […]

I was given a lunch bag full of dirty Jerusalem artichoke roots a handful of years ago and now I have a stand that is at least 500 square feet. It is in the center of my food forest. The stand acts like a giant sponge to absorb the extra water that floods my growing […]

How to build a non-code human waste collection system I am talking about pooping into a bucket. Bucket toilets are commonly used by campers, boaters, and hunters. Unlike pit latrines, they prevent the leaching of raw waste into soil and waterways. Bucket toilets concentrate waste so it can be of use later as ‘humanure’, – […]